


only a few steps behind

by norgbelulah



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they're only a few steps behind you</p>
            </blockquote>





	only a few steps behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Written for the Summer in Harlan Comment Fic Meme 2012 on nvrleavehalan at LJ. Not beta'd.

They give Raylan a week’s suspension for taking out Dickie Bennett’s knee on the diamond.

Arlo won’t stop smiling at him about it, in a rare welcoming, congratulatory mood, and Raylan can’t stand that. He spends his first free Monday bumming around town, taking in the heat of the spring and watching people go about their business.

He sees Boyd Crowder tossing down a butt outside the grocery. The boy looks up at him and smiles.

They’re the same age. Boyd should be in school too, but he skips class like it’s his job and still somehow makes his grades, a phenomenon Raylan will never understand.

Boyd beckons him over and Raylan goes.

The boy is smiling at him, not exactly like Arlo, but just as hungry, like he’s got a plan. Raylan likes this smile better. He takes a proffered cigarette and bends to light it from Boyd’s hand. He palms Boyd’s knuckles, blocking out the wind, and something crawls up through the hairs on his arm. He suppresses a shiver.

“Wanna see something cool?” Boyd asks through the smoke. Raylan nods.

He pockets his lighter and leads Raylan to his pickup. When he hesitates at the door, Boyd smiles and says, “I’ll drop you off later, wherever you want.” Raylan climbs in and they drive, windows down, radio on.

Boyd parks on the side of the state highway, near Stone Mountain and the state line, and he beckons Raylan to follow him through the trees off the shoulder. There’s no path and the woods are dense. Boyd takes out his knife and cuts through more than a few branches. Raylan’s got scratches on his arms already.

They walk for twenty minutes and they say barely a word. Raylan’s never been sure this was a good way to spend his day, and his low confidence is waning fast. He doesn’t let it show on his face.

They come down to a clearing in a small holler, the old creek bed all dried up now, and Raylan doesn’t see it right away. Boyd looks at it, then back at Raylan, smirking, and finally he makes it out, a structure, all rotted wood and overgrown ivy and broken glass, nestled in the far corner of the clearing.

“Must be decades, no one’s lived here,” he murmurs.

Boyd smiles, evening out his expression. “More like a century.”

They look at each other for a minute then, and again without so much as a syllable between them, walk forward. There’s a blanket of hanging vines covering the door and Raylan holds it aside while Boyd ducks through then slips in himself. 

His eyes don’t adjust quickly enough and he stumbles over something, hard, maybe iron, and pitches into Boyd. Boyd’s back is solid and warm and his hand reaches behind him to steady Raylan at his forearm. “Sorry,” Raylan mumbles. His eyes finally adjusted, he sees Boyd flash him a smile and hears him breathe a quiet laugh. “Shut up,” he says and pushes Boyd forward.

It’s cool in the place, where the light hasn’t shown in so long and Raylan stops, pulling up his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. Boyd watches him and turns, bending down to pull up a floorboard. He retrieves a canteen from the dirt between the joists and holds it out to Raylan.

At Raylan’s questioning look, he says, “This land belongs to my people. My daddy does some business here sometimes. Keeps a stash.”

Raylan takes the canteen and a healthy draught. He passes it back to Boyd who does the same.

They look around some more, poking in corners, scaring themselves when the floor creaks under their feet and the roof groans like its gonna fall on them. Boyd takes his lighter to some candle wax left on the mantle and Raylan tells him he’s gonna burn the whole place down. Boyd just grins and puts it away after another minute.

They run out of stuff to look at and soon are just looking at each other. Raylan can’t hold in the question any longer. “Why’d you bring me out here?”

Boyd shrugs, careless like he always seems. “Didn’t want you wastin’ your day off. How many did they give you?”

“A whole week.”

“Huh,” Boyd grunts. “That kid’s an asshole anyway. Heard he needs surgery.”

Raylan doesn’t want to talk about it. He looks away, unconsciously towards the door.

He hears footsteps outside and turns back to Boyd, who eyes are on the door too, still as a spooked animal.

Raylan moves towards the floorboard Boyd pulled up, but Boyd catches him by the arm, shaking his head and pulling him back into the darkest corner of the place. 

They hunker down behind the stove, wedged between its rusted out belly and a rotted down pile of firewood, Raylan stuck in before Boyd, who presses back as far as he can, trying to keep out of sight. Raylan’s knees are tight between his chest and Boyd’s back and his feet are wedged uncomfortably underneath him.

There’s no question it’s Bo Crowder coming in.

“Oh Danny,” Bo is saying and Raylan hears feet dragging on the floor. There’s another set of footsteps too, but no other voice. Boyd stiffens, but Raylan can’t see. “Oh, Danny, Danny, boy, what made you think you could skimp on us? You think you’re better’n anybody else, that you were special enough we’d give you some kind of pass?”

There’s a rustle near the floor, like something’s scraping across it. Bo says, “Oh, Danny boy,” again and someone else growls, “I got your pipes for you, right here,” and it’s Arlo.

Raylan clamps his mouth shut and Boyd pushes back even harder, the breath seeming too loud out of them both. But a man is screaming because Raylan’s daddy just broke his legs, so they’re not going to hear two boys in the corner. 

Raylan presses his forehead into the base of Boyd’s neck. It’s slippery where his sweat has dripped down from the heat and the close quarters, but Raylan doesn’t care. Boyd shifts his arm down, cramming it between them and grasping hard at Raylan’s ankle.

Danny is still screaming and Raylan can hear Arlo laugh. Then they start talking about money and protection and the man’s goddamn family.

Raylan hears threats and pleas and messy, heavy weeping until the air in his lungs starts coming out and in with a silent, shuddering gasp.

It’s nearly dusk by the time they leave and it takes excruciating minutes for Boyd and Raylan to get enough feeling back in their limbs to pry themselves out. They’re all a sweaty, trembling tangle and Raylan knows he’s white as a sheet.

He only takes his eyes off the blood on the floor when Boyd breaks the silence, last shattered by those screams. “Hey,” he murmurs.

Raylan looks at him, sitting on the leafy, dirt-ridden floor, eyes wide and mouth open, breathing hard still, though the danger is past. He’s not white, he doesn’t look disturbed, not like how Raylan feels it, curdling terribly in his belly. 

“Raylan, it’s okay,” Boyd says and Raylan punches him in the mouth.

He stands over Boyd who’s looking up at him, hand to his jaw, blood at his lip, like Dickie Bennett did at the pitcher’s mound, like Raylan’s some kind of wild animal, going for this throat. Raylan feels like throwing up.

“Let’s get out of here.” The words come ragged, guttural, from his mouth and he thinks maybe there are tears in his eyes.

Boyd expression has changed, but Raylan doesn’t want to look at him anymore. They walk back in silence. They turn the radio up too loud.

Boyd keeps rubbing at his jaw and Raylan won’t look at him full on again, even when he mumbles a, “Bye,” at the bottom of the hill to his house. He thinks maybe Boyd calls after him, but he doesn’t turn.

When he gets inside, Arlo’s got a jar of ‘shine in his hand, blood in his fingernails, and a smile stretched mean across his face.

“Dickie Bennett’s never gonna walk right again,” he crows.

Raylan starts to laugh.


End file.
